Links

“I think Nico this weekend was perhaps a little bit happier with the balance and got the car where he wanted it for qualifying, and perhaps Lewis didn’t. But the differences are tiny; it’s not like one driver is having a disaster and the other is having a great day. I think it’s just the normal variances that you get, and quite frankly it’s great to see from both of them.”

Oksana Kosachenko, former manager of Vitaly Petrov: “Formula One grand prix requires around 600 marshals who need to be not only trained for the event but also speak English. In that case we have a big problem as very small percentage of the population can speak English.”

“Triple championship-winning Formula One team Infiniti Red Bull Racing faces constant challenges from both internal and external threats as its technological developments provoke the interest of amateur hackers and rival teams.”

“Consumer demand for quality, live content across different platforms is now the norm and with the emergence of bandwidth-hungry production workflows such as Ultra HD, quick turnarounds and availability of content across multiple platforms is becoming a hygiene factor for content owners.”

“Though it is suspected that there might have been a rear suspension failure, which is depicted in the Rush movie, footage of the crash shows Lauda’s car fishtailing as he loses control and veers into the wall, which could have also been the result of a damp spot on the track where he entered the bend.”

Comment of the day

That battle between Prost and Schumacher could never happen today sadly.

The DRS would have got Prost by very easily. But equally importantly Schumacher would never have got the lead with today’s tyres and tyre regulations.

Schumacher won that race by planning two stops, but when tyre wear was better than expected and he found himself in the lead he ditched the planned second stop and tried to hold on to the end.

Today the tyres would have fallen to bits forcing a second stop or seeing him so uncompetitive Prost would be past easily. But also he?óÔé¼Ôäód have had to do a second stop anyway in order to run both compounds.Linda1

Happy birthday!

On this day in F1

Mika Hakkinen reasserted himself in the 1998 championship battle by winning the Luxembourg Grand Prix at the Nurburgring (in Germany, of course) on this day 15 years ago.

The Ferrari drivers occupied the front row but Hakkinen passed Eddie Irvine early in the race then jumped Michael Schumacher at the first round of pit stops to regain a four-point margin over his title rival. David Coulthard claimed third.

To be honest, that’s only down to back-room contracts and money-men keeping everything to themselves.

Once FOM finally turns a corner, we can probably expect at least some level of web streaming without having to sign up to excessive television packages or downright despicably-priced 24-hour passes. Heck, it’s cheaper for them than bouncing signals off space junk.

I appreciate the “On this day in F1 history” feature and the clips from races of the past. That being said, people need to understand that these are selected highlights and are not (and are not intended) to be an accurate representation of racing at the time. The average margin of race victory in 1993 was about 30 seconds – the same amount as was regarded as intolerably boring recently in Singapore. Watching Prost win in South Africa by 80 seconds, or Senna in Monaco by 50 seconds, would not make for entertaining viewing. It might help people appreciate what we have today though.

Through the miracle of selective choosing of highlight clips Prost and Senna have come to be remembered as forever locked in wheel-to-wheel combat, when in fact such instances made up no more than a few minutes of the roughly fifty hours of race time they spent together at McLaren.

Kovalainen shouldn’t get the seat at Caterham, he’s a good driver but he isn’t that much better than the current drivers which isn’t good considering the current drivers have much less experience and are constantly improving. Caterham signed Pic for 2014 for a reason, he’s very consistent, has good race pace and qualifying pace. Pic finished ahead of a Sauber in Bahrain, he was also running ahead of Bottas and Gutierrez at Silverstone before the safety car. When you consider that Pic is 5 years younger than van der Garde, it’s amazing that he seems to have a more mature approach.